


The Millennium Anxiety

by PunkHazard



Series: Synaesthesia [5]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-28
Updated: 2016-11-28
Packaged: 2018-09-02 19:17:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8680216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunkHazard/pseuds/PunkHazard
Summary: It takes Lúcio a solid two days to figure out that the Sombra he'd been in contact with since the early days of his revolution in Rio, who'd sent him blueprints and confidential Vishkar files, is the same Sombra who's threatening to leak compromising information on each of the active Overwatch agents.





	

It takes Lúcio a solid two days to figure out that the Sombra he'd been in contact with since the early days of his revolution in Rio, who'd sent him blueprints and confidential Vishkar files, is the same Sombra who's threatening to leak compromising information on each of the active Overwatch agents. He doesn't tell anyone about it until she sends him a folder of pictures-- cached photos from what appear to be Genji's old social media accounts. 

Lúcio's pretty sure she doesn't mean anything malicious by it: Sombra has a tendency to assume that everyone _likes_ having immense amounts of information on hand, just in case it becomes convenient in the future (and she's not exactly wrong). Besides, her message had been short and playful, not threatening as it had been to the other agents.

"So," says Lúcio, his legs thrown across Genji's lap as he fiddles with his phone, "uh, you know how Sombra's threatening to air out everyone's dirty laundry? She get you too?"

Genji's reclined on a pile of pillows, rag in hand and a tin of polish on the bedside table. He hadn't put his visor back on since he removed it after their drills for the day, the air filters in Gibraltar's vents more than enough to keep his lungs clear. "Yes," he answers, bending Lúcio's knee to work polish into his joint and buff out the scratches. His movements are slow and leisurely but efficient as ever, no energy wasted.

"Are you gonna be alright?" Lúcio asks, sitting up to watch Genji work. Most of the agents who'd been threatened are a touch more anxious about it than Genji seems to be, despite having _relatively_ cleaner histories.

Shoulders lifting in a shrug, Genji moves on to the rest of Lúcio's leg, swiping the rag through every seam and crevice in the robotics. "My past with the Shimadas is not a secret to those who know where to look," he says, pulling the polished limb closer to his body to make space for the other one across his thighs. "And you?"

"She knows there's nothing she can say about me that's worse than what's already out there."

"You speak as though you know her," Genji points out, refreshing the polish on his rag and going back to work.

"Yeah," Lúcio huffs, "about that. Found out this morning that I've known her for a couple years. We met online."

Genji looks up. He stares.

"And we talk about, uh, stuff. Nothing confidential, really, but she uh, she knows we're together." Lúcio squirms. "Internet friends, y'know."

Genji says nothing for a few seconds before he sets aside the cloth he'd been using to maintenance Lúcio's joints and turns his gaze to focus intently on Lúcio himself. "Where are you going with this?"

"She sent me some pictures of you when you were younger." Genji doesn't react but Lúcio quickly adds, "I haven't looked at them and if you don't want me to, I'll delete. But I was just thinking--"

"Go ahead, Lúcio." Genji flashes him a wry smile, eyes flickering across the room to the picture on his desk-- the only one of him and Hanzo he'd managed to salvage before the Shimadas purged all evidence of his existence from public record. "I only have one," he adds, "it would be nice to see the others."

Lúcio extends his phone. "You wanna go through them first?"

"We can look at them together," Genji answers, catching his wrist. "But first, let me finish."

* * *

"How could you not know," Genji murmurs against the back of Lúcio's neck, arms wrapped loosely around his waist, "Sombra was Sombra?"

Sighing, Lúcio leans back, his weight settling against Genji's chest and his elbows braced on the cyborg's knees. "Look," he says, pulling up the folder on his phone and opening the first image, "you gotta know how common Sombra is as a handle in the Mexican hacker community."

Genji pointedly says nothing about his apparent familiarity with the Mexican hacker community, and he winces when the photo finally finishes loading. Genji with a drink in hand, his cheek pressed to a girl's. Both of them are duck-faced, V-signs up. "Most of these," says Genji after a second, sheepish, "are probably going to look like this one."

The next dozen or so are almost the exact same iterations of the first: Genji with a drink in his hand, surrounded by a crush of bodies. The sheer monotony of his 'tipsy selfie with a cute stranger' montage almost makes Lúcio laugh, but he suppresses the urge while Genji refuses to look longer than a few seconds at each picture, burying his face into Lúcio's shoulder until he moves on to the next. Photos of Genji exchanging drunken cheek-kisses don't bother Lúcio at all, no stranger himself to the flush of uninhibited affection that comes with alcohol (and who knows what else he'd managed to get his hands on). 

They're actually a bit tamer than he'd expected, the sheer number of people who've apparently sat in Genji's lap notwithstanding. 

"Hey," Lúcio says suddenly, "this one's new."

Genji looks up to see a sepia-toned photo of himself from behind, shirtless and barefoot, leaning over a countertop to pet a cat. It's artfully framed, lighting soft. "The one who took this picture," he says distantly, "was a photographer."

"That's not Shimada Castle," Lúcio observes.

"Well, no." A beat. "We can stop, if you prefer."

"Nah." Lúcio zooms in, swiping his screen to focus on Genji's back and shoulder muscles, laughing softly as Genji muffles an embarrassed groan into the ridges of spine at the base of his neck. "You were seriously built."

"Ninja training," Genji mumbles back, reaching under Lúcio's arm to swipe to the next photo: a picture of him in high school, wearing--

Genji swipes again, drawing an indignant squawk from Lúcio. "Wait," Lúcio says, contorting himself to pull the phone out of Genji's reach, "go back!"

"I lost a bet," Genji tries to explain, resigning himself to the inevitable as Lúcio tabs back to the image of a younger, leaner Genji-- a gangly teenager carrying himself with the confidence of an accomplished athlete and all-around popular student. Wearing a schoolgirl's sailor uniform in what appears to be the hallway of shoe-storage cubbies. "Against the girl I was dating at the time."

Lúcio squints at the screen, trying not to laugh and failing miserably as his shoulders shake with the strength of his suppressed amusement. "What bet?"

"I forgot, but the punishment was that I had to wear her uniform for a day." Lúcio feels Genji shrug, but doesn't turn around to look. "I agreed because I did not think I could fit in it, but she had a friend who was closer to my size. In any case, I always did think the girls' uniforms were cuter..."

"You looked good in it, Genji." Lúcio pointedly taps at the screen. "I would've killed for legs like those in high school. More ninja training?"

"I was also on the soccer team."

"We still never got to play," Lúcio says, turning his head to kiss along the line of Genji's jaw. "Bet I can pick up a _football_ somewhere."

Swiping ahead, Genji stares for a moment before he gives up completely, refusing to meet Lúcio's eyes as the younger man whistles under his breath, brows jumping. "Post-workout," Lúcio says appreciatively in between helpless snickering at the sight of Genji probably in his early twenties posing shirtless in front of a bathroom mirror, one hand on the waistband of his sweatpants pushing it down to reveal every hard, defined plane of his abs. "This is so excessive, man."

"Excessive," Genji repeats, voice muffled.

"Most of us barely even get to be cute in _one_ body," Lúcio teases, "and you got to be hot in two. 'S not fair."

Genji's arms curl back around Lúcio's waist, his shoulder vents hissing open in lieu of an actual response. "Please," he whispers after a few seconds, "don't do that without warning."

"Do what?"

"Say those things."

"I know _I_ look good," Lúcio continues, grinning, "but who knows how long I'm gonna keep this beautiful figure?" 

He looks back down at his phone, a crooked smile on his face as Genji's lips brush the back of his neck, warm breath washing over his skin. He scrolls through another collection, photos of Genji full-on laughing-- eyes closed, body draped over the nearest friend or table, barely able to stay upright. There's something about the unrestrained youth in his expression, his body language, that makes Lúcio wonder if _that_ Genji and his Genji could have ever been the same person. He turns his head, playful comment dying on his tongue at the sight of Genji's wistful, hungry expression, eyes trained on the phone in Lúcio's hand. 

"I do not remember these," he says softly, "or how that felt."

Lúcio reaches up, fitting the curve of his palm against Genji's jaw and physically diverting his attention away from the photos. "Hey, look at me." He tilts his head, pulling Genji down to plant a kiss on his cheek. "You don't laugh like that anymore," Lúcio says, nosing at the rough, scarred skin, knowing how much Genji loves to have his face touched, "but you didn't smile back then like you do now. They're the ones missing out."

Genji closes his eyes, leaning into his hand. "I did not have a reason to," he answers, that slow, hard-won smile turning to Lúcio, "before I met you."

He's not lying; Lúcio's watched him enough to know that for the three people in the world Genji willingly removes his visor around, the expressions he reserves for each are markedly different. Deference, respect and concern for Zenyatta, playful challenges to Hanzo. For Lúcio, a certain set to his eyes and mouth-- the worry-line between his brows smooths over and he looks years younger, open and vulnerable. "And you tell _me_ not to say that kinda thing without warning," he retorts, knowing that Genji can feel his face grow hot.

"I will try to remember for the future," Genji quips, in a tone that says he absolutely won't be doing that.

Swiping ahead to the next collection, Lúcio huffs as a series of baby pictures scrolls onscreen. Many of them show a round-faced, smiling toddler with a slightly older child. "You and your brother?" he asks, pausing at a photo of baby Genji chewing on Hanzo's fingers.

"Yes. I was cuter, right?"

"Well, I'm biased."

Genji's lips curve into a grin against the side of Lúcio's neck, one hand slipping under the hem of his shirt, the cool matte pad of one finger drawing slow circles around his navel. "I know that."

He doesn't comment on or even look at any of the other pictures, eyes closed as he rests his forehead on Lúcio's shoulder. Whatever relationship Genji and Hanzo had at the time, it was gone by the time they were adults and the progress they've made since then has been slow and painful. After a few seconds, Lúcio dims his screen and sets it aside, deciding that he's seen enough. "Let's do something else," he says firmly. "We've got an hour before dinner."

After a contemplative silence, Genji lifts his head and asks, "Do you want to see the files Sombra has on me?"

"If you're alright with it," Lúcio says, "yeah."

Genji picks up his visor and holds it over his face, tabbing through a messenger application to pull up a video Sombra had attached. Handing it over to Lúcio, he pulls back slightly, hands retreating to his own sides as Lúcio presses the visor over his eyes. Security camera footage from the inside of a corporate building begins to play on the HUD, a timestamp of 12:07 AM displayed in one corner. Monochrome blueish-white against black, every detail starkly illuminated. There's a nondescript-looking salaryman on screen, reading off a tablet. 

Someone approaches him with a friendly wave, face obscured from the camera, and they walk into an office together. Genji's disguised his gait, his body language, his build, any and all identifying features that could be traced back to him, but something about him is instantly recognizable to Lúcio. The set of his shoulders and the proportions of his body are all painfully familiar despite how much of him had been altered after cyberization. 

Nothing else happens on screen, but Lúcio feels a shiver move down his spine. "That guy dies?" he asks, voice distant as the video ends. Whatever supplementary documents Sombra has on Genji he doesn't bother to pull up, the pieces easy enough to fit together. 

"Yes."

Seting the visor down, Lúcio belatedly notices that Genji's moved back, putting space between them. "Who was he?"

"Yakuza." Genji sucks a breath in through his teeth, then exhales. "He was in possession of information that would have compromised the hierarchy of the Shimadagumi," he explains. "Our father asked me to resolve the situation, so I did."

"What happened after?"

"I was proud that I could complete the task assigned to me." Genji shrugs; the things he'd done on behalf of the Shimadas turned out to differ very little from the things he'd do as a member of Overwatch, so much of it boiled down to politics and bureaucracy, cleaning up old mistakes. "That was not the first or last time I was asked to kill someone, but the only time I was careless enough to be caught on camera."

"You didn't have to show me that," Lúcio says after a moment, scooting to fit himself back against Genji's chest. "You know it doesn't change anything, and I kinda figured that's what went down with the Shimadas anyway. Bad people picking each other off."

"Mm."

"Not that you're--"

"I know." Arms curling securely around Lúcio's waist, Genji ducks his head, his lips brushing the shell of Lúcio's ear. "But that is also a part of who I am," he says, pressing a kiss to the skin above a quickening pulse, "and that information may be public soon. I did not want you to be blindsided."

When he feels Genji start to pull back, Lúcio reaches up, curls one hand behind his neck and holds him in place. "I know that wasn't easy for you," he says, turning his head to meet Genji's eyes, "I'll ask Sombra to back off, but no guarantees. She does whatever she wants, y'know?"

"I think she is bored of me already." Genji tucks Lúcio's shoulder under his chin, reluctant to move again now that he's been trapped. He'd taken a page out of Zenyatta's book in crafting his noncommittal response to Sombra, an invitation for her to do her worst. Any further action from Lúcio will either be unnecessary or turn into a provocation to dig even deeper.

Lúcio nods, tilts his head, allows Genji to nuzzle along the length of his jaw. "You want me to send you those files?" he asks, finding cybernetic hands with his own and snorting as Genji's breath tickles the sensitive skin under his ear.

"No. I think the one I have is more than enough."

"Let's go see what's for dinner, then. Help out a little, even."

"After you," Genji says, and clips his visor into place.

"Oh, wait." Reaching for his phone, Lúcio tabs to the photos Sombra had downloaded and deletes the entire gallery. Slipping the device into his pocket, he stands and extends his hands to Genji. "Alright," he laughs, "up, lazybones. Maybe I can score some snacks."

**Author's Note:**

> why don't they have in-game dialogue?!


End file.
